I've made an offer on an identical plate to the one I posted earlier, no response yet. I thought £10 a fair opening offer for an £11.49 item.

I'm thinking it would work well with a sling strap attached to the rear lug, leaving the camera on your right hip with the lens pointing backwards.

I mostly use the longer plates for things like the 50-135mm which makes the camera a bit nose heavy and doesn't have a tripod mount. The ballhead can handle it when you've tightened all the bolts but the balance isn't wonderful when you're trying to get it lined up.

Get a pyrex bowl, a thick pair of work gloves and a heat gun then convert it into a bowl...

Guaranteed method for disposing of any crime against music!

They claim it's machined from T-6 aluminium. Obviously I've no way of confirming or disproving this.

Cheap straps are one thing, as webbing doesn't tend to snap without warning. They may wear prematurely and fray but they don't tend to just let go and dump your camera down a rocky hillside. It looks as though a similar sling strap to that provided with the Bigma would fit, as this uses a lug on the back end of the tripod mount foot. Sigma evidently think such an arrangement is perfectly acceptable for up to £2k worth of gear, if it wasn't then they'd be deluged with warranty claims and change it in short order.

I may buy one of those plates and give it a go, I'm sure I can come up with a non-destructive test with the camera dangling at a low height over something soft (folded-up thick quilt would do). I don't already own a Blackrapid strap so I can just look for a sling strap which will fit that lug.

Edit, I'm thinking I may be using my QR plates differently - I would have the lugs on that plate facing fore and aft rather than side to side, as that way I can shift the camera fore and aft on the ballhead to balance the weight. I say this after seeing some photos above where the plate was set up with the lugs placed side to side.

There are a few A-S type plates on ebay with a similar fitting but I'm not convinced the metal would be strong enough to take the weight. This sort of thing looks right but I wouldn't trust that little lug to handle all the weight of £1k worth of camera gear. I know the Pentax strap lugs are thinner but I'm more confident in the quality of Pentax metalworking than I am in HK ebay special castings!

I've watched some of it, the main problem seems to be the locals who apparently have no fear whatsoever of death or injury and attempt to push other traffic closer to the edge.

I've driven worse than that road, just without the lunatics. Although the A470 between Merthyr and Cardiff has a good selection of those...

If it's a WR lens there surely shouldn't be condensation inside? Or is the pathway for the aperture lever not sealed?

Take it back and complain, there is clearly a manufacturing fault.

Do mention it if you find an A-S QR plate with strap mount as I'd like one too. My Redsnapper ballhead uses the same fitting and I've had the same thoughts about sling-type straps and QR plates.

The only ideas I can think of involve getting a cheap QR plate and drilling it for a strap lug, although looking at the only one I have which would be suitable for this I'm not sure there would be enough metal left to reliably take the weight of camera plus lens. You might manage it with a small U-bolt, nuts and spreader plates put through the end of the plate, but we're talking model engineering here.

My view on SDM and the other forum:

I strongly suspect that Pentax upgraded the SDM motor design in the 50-135mm, but the other forum contains a lot of early adopters who bought the earlier version (and naturally you will hear more about the failures than the ones still working).

I have the 50-135mm. SDM doesn't worry me, if it breaks I have the two year guarantee from SRS and after that I reckon EU consumer law offers some protection - a professional quality lens should be expected to work for at least five or six years!

At least this time it'll be done right. The bodywork chap I'll be taking it to would probably throttle the windscreen fitter if he damages the new paintwork!

There is also a Japanese-spec spoiler in undercoat waiting to go on. I've done the basic stuff but it needs professional attention to apply the top coat and fit it. Given he'll be mixing a batch of paint anyway this is probably my best bet for having it match properly. Should give fair warning to anyone who mistakes it for a boring estate...

Yup, just like that one!

If you are planning to do the same you will need a lens wrench to unscrew the locking ring. These have two metal prongs which can be set at different distances apart, the tips of these fit into notches in lens parts to allow you to unscrew them. Also works on some film camera parts.